To Indigo, Tanith Lee [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

Not the exact station, just the type. And when you did, I got out too. Nothing was further from your thoughts at that time than our encounter. Rather wounding really. You didn’t look round once and I, once again, merely took my time. You went out over the forecourt and I fell into step about thirty-five, forty yards behind. If you speeded up, so did I a bit. If you went slowly, I went more slowly still. You didn’t look round even when you got out of the high street. Lost in your own little world, eh, Roy? The trees were useful in this street. Just coming into leaf. Shade, sinking light. Camouflage. I watched you open your door and in you went. And then I saw the passage running down a few doors up, the one that leads to the alley.”

“Supposing I had seen you on the platform when I got off the train?”

“I’d have gone up and said hello.”

I thought this was doubtless a fact.

I said, “You were in the alley behind the house. I saw you there.”

“That’s right. And then that fantastic owl soared over. I thought I’d leave us at that, for then.”

“You were here all night. Where did you sleep?”

“There’s a pub in the high street does B and B. Not bad actually. Though breakfast wasn’t up to much, cereal and cold toast. I hate cold toast. How about you?”

“What about the dustbin?”

“I just bought it in the evening, a whim. There was a sort of bargain place still open, some sort of sale. They sell the beer you drink at the pub, so I got you a bottle of that too. Did you enjoy it?”

“When did you put the bin in the garden?”

“About ten to midnight. The pub goes on after it closes, regular den of vice, booze, weed, other stuff.”

I thought, I was awake at ten to midnight. But I didn’t hear you. I had the radio on. I often do. Christ. I lay there and you were outside. But I’d known that already, hadn’t I?

As for the pub, I knew its reputation. It did not exactly provide B and B, even though it would, for cash, put certain people up overnight, no questions asked. I wondered if Joseph were into ‘weed’ or ‘stuff’, or both. I didn’t ask.

I said, “Very well. And how did you get the phone number?

“B.T.”

“You knew my surname?”

“Not then. But I knew you were called Roy, or you said you were, and your address.”

“You can’t be given a number without the proper surname.”

“I thought that too. So first I tried your other neighbour, Ian, the man with a tea-towel over his arm.” He meant the house-husband at No 76. “I said, I’m looking for an old friend, short, thin, calls himself Roy Johnston, No 74 Old Church Lane. Is this Church Lane? And helpful Ian of the towel said, Oh yes, this is the Lane. Only that’s Roy Phipps at 74. And I looked knowing and said, Oh, it’s Phipps he calls himself now? Sure, said Towelly, looking a bit fazed. I added, slightly uneasy myself, But he does still call himself Roy, does he? Sure, said Ian. I could see he was dying to ask me why you used different names, but I thanked him, and then I said, It’s really great, I haven’t seen him for years. Used to be almost like an uncle when I was a kid. I’ll just go and get the beer out of the car. And off I went to phone you, leaving Mr Towel to marvel as he scrubbed his Cinderellarine dishes.”

Had it been so basic? It could have been. At any point the scheme could have come unstuck, but it had not.

One had an impression of the fortuitous. That this Fate had been written. As in my dream he had said. But I ceased to believe in God or destiny when I was a teenager. No momentous event dissuaded me. A pity in its way. When subsequent horrors did truly befall me, as most of us they do, I had nothing left to curse or turn my back on.

His use of words had struck me. Was that inevitable for a writer? He was generally grammatical, and where not only with a sort of ironic colloquial concession. And Cinderellarine. There was a term to conjure with. But all this was a victim’s cotton wool, in which I wrapped my awareness in order to accept the unacceptable. I must be wary, not only of the amiable fiend who sat on my table, but also of myself.

Presently we went into the front room.

That was his suggestion.

He pulled open the curtains and dull evening light revealed the room. I found myself examining it, seeing it through fresh eyes. His? The faded rose-pattern sofa and the two chairs, one of which had been recovered for my parents in a plain rose-colour fabric. The blocked-in fireplace with the electric fire. The wall-to-wall carpet, quite good in its day, but that day was long past. Most of the ornaments were gone. I’d given a lot of things to Oxfam. I’m not keen on clutter, and I hadn’t been sentimental over any of them. All except the red glass dog my mother had liked so much. I’d kept that on the shelf above the fireplace, with the clock that still worked, although now on a battery.

Joseph went straight over to the dog. And something in me reared up, surprising me with its feral watchfulness, as my moment of wanting to kill him had not surprised me at all.

“That’s unusual. It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” He didn’t touch. I was ready to shout, perhaps jump at him. But he gave me no cause. He said, “I like things like that. It’s old, is it? Victorian, maybe.” Then he sat down in the old-new-covered chair. “Everything’s very clean and tidy,” he said. “I noticed especially upstairs. You don’t strike me as domestic, Roy. Not like Mr Towel.”

“I have